Bad Council Fiscal Policies Deny Adequate Public Safety

I would suggest that the current "cash-only spending" for town capital projects has depleted town revenue assets to a dangerous level. As a direct result, our mayor and a majority of the Town Council try to claim there is no money available to fund even five new police officer positions.

The depression-era mentality of these individuals is about to bankrupt the ability of the town to fund such a necessary basic quality of life as "adequate" local law enforcement. Failure on their part to use such visionary funding opportunities such as municipal property corporations borders on incompetence. Instead of paying cash for every project and continually drawing down our town funds to zero, an average MPC would allow the town to make 4 or 5 percent on the money borrowed if deposited in an appropriate holding account.

If they haven't noticed, Payson is growing and the demographics are changing. Of course, no growth is one of the hidden agendas of the mayor and his minions. The cash-only expenditure game is one way of assuring that goal. Keeping the water issue unresolved and hyped-up is another.

Fire prevention and public safety should be the foundation of our community. Currently police officers are kept on call at home and forced to work up to 50 hours of overtime per week (at a higher rate of compensation) to just keep up with the local radio call demands.